Join me on my road to publication (part 4)
My new multipart series chronicles the ups and downs of an ordinary person striving to becoming a novelist in the real world. The series will span more than five decades.
If you’ve read parts 1-3, you can skip the intro (though it’s a fascinating intro 😀):
I’m the author of ten published novels, three novellas, and one nonfiction book. Seven of the novels, the three novellas, and the nonfiction book were traditionally published. I self-published the remaining three novels.
Though this might seem impressive to some, it goes without saying that I’m no Stephen King, especially when it comes to our respective bank accounts. Despite boasting over 50,000 purchases/downloads of my books, I’ve barely broken into five figures in cash royalties because (admittedly) most of the sales were free or inexpensive ebooks. Regardless, it’s likely there are authors who would trade places with me, which might be viewed as a depressing commentary on how extraordinarily difficult it is for a no-name to hit it big.
Though I’m not the only author on Substack chronicling something like this, my story has unique elements that I believe will be informative and relatable to writers and readers. Over the next several months, I’ll post a bimonthly account of my journey to publication—from the 1970s when I was a young man with big dreams to a recently retired dude who hasn’t given up on those dreams quite yet. Here is part 4.
The words pour out of me as fast as I can type
On Day 1 of Month 4 of my 36-month writing sabbatical in the Year 2004, I helped get the kids settled for their evening routine and then sat down in my office. My desk faced a broad window that overlooked the woods in our front yard. I opened my Mac PowerBook G4 with a 17-inch screen and powered it up. (Back then, that baby seemed high tech.) I arranged my neat pile of notes to the left of my PowerBook and placed a glass of wine out of spilling distance on the right. It was 8 o’clock on a Monday evening. But it wasn’t just any Monday. This was the night I would write the first words of a book I had dreamed about writing for a quarter of a century. I was excited, scared, thrilled, anxious, you name it. But I couldn’t allow those emotions to overpower my resolve. I had run out of excuses to delay any longer. We were settled in our new home in the forest. I had completed almost two months of extensive background research. Every little thing that needed to be done was done.
“Dammit Jim!” I said to myself, mimicking the voice of Dr. McCoy giving Captain Kirk a lecture. “Quit procrastinating and start this book.”
“Gotcha Bones,” I responded. “I just need to give the bridge one last dusting.”
“JIM!!!!”
“Okay, OKAY!”
(If this dialogue exchange confuses you, then you’re clearly not a Star Trek fan.)
As I discussed in parts 1-3, I had been envisioning this series in my mind for twenty-five years. However, my original plan wasn’t to write a series at all but rather one standalone book—something in the 300,000-word range—and then move on to my next project. In 2004, I had no idea that Death Wizard would eventually morph into six books. In fact, I didn’t even think of it as Death Wizard back then. I called it Death-Know, which I thought was the coolest title ever. But I appeared to be the only person who thought this way because every time I told somebody about it, I got funny looks in return. So Death Wizard finally won the day over Death-Know.
Anyway, as I mentioned in part 2 of this Substack series, my main character was a warrior named Torg. But he wasn’t just any warrior. He was called a Death Wizard because of his unique ability to temporarily die and then return from death imbued with magical powers that he absorbed during his brief visit to the Death Realm. During the course of the book, he would battle an evil sorcerer named Invictus and fall in love with a beautiful sorceress named Laylah, who just so happened to be Invictus’ sister.
As you can see, like most writers I’m great at digressing. So I’ll get back to my original point. I was now sitting in my deskchair in front of my computer with notes on one side and a glass of wine on the other, and here is the first sentence I wrote:
Such darkness he had never known.
Not bad. A purposeful twist on sentence structure to grab the reader’s attention. By the end of the first night, I had written the entire prologue, which turned out to be 232 words long. Hooray! I was off and running. I shut down my computer and celebrated with another glass of wine.
While lying in bed that night, I did the math. Let’s say I averaged 250 words a day times thirty days. That would equal 7,500 words a month. Considering I was aiming for a grand total of 300,000 (which eventually turned out to be 800,000), it was clear I would have to pick up the pace if I wanted to meet my deadline.
Dr. McCoy reentered my mind.
“Dammit Jim! Two hundred and fifty words is nothing. You have to average at least 1,500 to stop the tribbles from taking over the ship!”
“Okay, OKAY! Chill Bones. CHILL!”
The next night, I wrote 1,500 words—and now the race was really on. Some nights I reached 2,000 or more. After the first week, I had hit 12,000. The more I wrote, the easier—and more fun—it became. The words poured out of me like I was channeling. In my first thirty days, I surpassed 55,000 words—not a world record by any means, but still a serious chunk of change. And it was dawning on me that the story I had envisioned for so long was far too complex for a standalone book to handle. It would have to be a trilogy, at least.
I continued to sit down every night, seven days a week, rain or shine, healthy or sick, happy or depressed, and churn out at least 1,500 words. In three months, I had topped 200,000. The first draft of book 1 was finished. Twenty-five years after I had I written my first book when I was 21 years old, I had finally written my second at age 46.
Up next: I begin to form an addiction to the evil drug called publication.
Hmm, there's something about a deadline, even a self-imposed one, that stirs the creative juices. Adrenaline adds wings to your pen.
You truly are the most dedicated, disciplined, and productive writer I know. It just astounds me!